Going viral on social media isn't just great for attention and exposure, as it can now lead to hundreds if not thousands of dollars thanks to creator payout programs.
Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and X all pay out directly based on the engagement and number of views that your content gets, and theoretically anyone could strike gold with one lucky post or video.
A fantastic example of overnight virality is the recent Coldplay cheating scandal, where Astronomer CEO Andy Byron was caught embracing his company's Chief People Officer Kristin Cabot at the concert.
TikTok user Grace Springer, known by her social media handle @instaagraace, managed to capture the moment that Byron and Cabot realized the camera was on them, and it caused her clip to go viral.
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In just under a week the video in question has earned 126,800,000 views, with Grace herself reaching the 50,000 follower milestone in the process. Other videos that she has uploaded since have also proven to be popular, with one picking up 8,800,000 views.
However, a follow-up post revealed the horrific mistake that might just have cost her thousands, if not tens of thousands of dollars, and she'll likely be thinking about this for a very long time.
What was her mistake?
Grace uploaded a video of her reaction to a comment, detailing that she could have earned another $60,000 if she had recorded and uploaded for another 40 seconds.
As her viral clip was only 15 seconds long and she wasn't part of the TikTok Creator Rewards Program, she unfortunately wasn't eligible for any payout whatsoever, and another video revealed that she'd earned exactly $0.00 despite racking up 37.8 million post views and 4.1 million likes at the time.
If she had thought of that ahead of time then she could have easily filled the rest of the video out with other clips from the concert, and perhaps her own take of the situation, but by her own admission she didn't think much of the situation beyond wondering why they had acted like that.
Perhaps it was the short nature of the clip, which showed exactly what it needed to, that led to its viral nature though, and maybe another creator would have taken the spotlight instead if she had made it any longer.
That won't matter too much to Grace right now though without any money from TikTok, although she has put links to her Venmo and Cashapp in her bio with the caption: "Help me pay my student loans!"